The Remarkable Girl: A Valentine's Day Story
by SheWhoScrawls
Summary: 15 year old Sherlock Holmes is all alone at boarding school, until the feisty daughter of a teacher unexpectedly befriends him. Happy belated Valentine's Day!


_A/N: I know it's been a long time since I posted anything, but do forgive me. I participated in NaNoWriMo this past November and still feel pretty burnt out from that. I'm trying to work my way back up again. So I wrote this little piece at two in the morning on Valentine's day, and would have posted it later that day, except I didn't have an opportunity to edit it until this morning, so here it is. All thanks for proof-reading go to cjnwriter. Enjoy, readers! Happy belated Valentine's Day! Cheers! -SWS_

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The draft from the window was cold as Sherlock Holmes sat in the old, threadbare armchair and drew his legs up to rest his chin on his knees. He shivered and tugged down the sleeves of the dark red sweater he'd had shoved up to his elbows. But despite the cold that was reaching through his thick, suffocating, and altogether dreadful outer layer, he did not move. Even if he wanted to stop absent-mindedly staring at the delicate swirls of frost on the window panes, he couldn't have forced himself to move.

What was he doing here? What was the point? Didn't his family care anything for him? All these things he thought bitterly as he shivered again and watched the whimsical snowflakes drift past. The other boys were outside, playing as if they had not a care in the world. A couple of the youngest were rolling large snowballs for snowmen and building forts, but mostly they were throwing snowballs violently at each other and dunking each other's heads into snow drifts. All that pointless, petty "fun." Sherlock wondered why the headmaster didn't come out and send them all inside. Sherlock could clearly see the man from his dormitory, tall, pot-bellied, and imposing, staring out the window of his office across the courtyard. Somehow, across the expanse of snow and ice, the headmaster saw Sherlock looking and met his gaze sternly, as if to say, "You should be in the library, young man."

Sherlock only frowned deeper and gave the most authoritative figure in the school a miserable glare. It wasn't as if he'd have anything more to do in the library, anyway. He'd read every book in there by now, excepting the particularly romantic ones, and committed those of actual quality to memory.

He dropped his gaze from the window and stared at his trouser cuffs. It was so lonely here; he had to admit it. He tended to blend into the shadows; none of the other boys noticed him. Not that any of them were intelligent enough for him to enjoy their company, anyway. Sherlock wished his parents would have elected to let him remain at home with his tutors, but it wasn't like they ever considered anything except Mycroft and his studies. Mycroft. Always Mycroft. Bright, handsome Mycroft, off to University! As if Sherlock cared anymore about that revolting older brother of his, who was always locked behind a closed door, studying one kind of advanced mathematics or another.

The one thing to successfully break Sherlock out of his thoughts was the soft opening of the dormitory door behind him. He started and turned around. "Delilah," he said in surprise, blinking at the unexpected sight of a tall, gangly girl standing in the doorway. He stared stupidly in silence at her for a moment before speaking again, nodding at the room itself. "You aren't really supposed to be in here, you know."

"Oh, really?" she said, head cocked and voice holding what appeared to be genuine interest, although she made no move to leave.

"As far as I know, anyway," said Sherlock, eyes averted from looking at her face.

Delilah shrugged and plopped down on one of the beds, taking a smuggled apple from her dress pocket and biting into it vigorously.

"Doesn't your father have a class you should be spying on?" Sherlock suggested, trying to think of anything to make her leave. He was annoyed enough, and the presence of a female was only making it worse.

"Yes, but it's at another school all the way over in Fielding," she said casually, wiping juice from the apple on her skirt. "I wasn't about to sneak into the cab and follow him just for a lesson on the Trojan War. The library gave me that years ago."

Sherlock nodded absently, wracking his brain for some other way to politely make her leave.

"Whose bed am I sitting on?" asked Delilah, looking down curiously at the smoothed bedspread.

"Roger Fallon's," answered Sherlock promptly.

Delilah made a disgusted face and stood up. "Lord," she said. "You could have said something before."

"Sorry, I didn't think his bed would be such a scandalizing thing to you."

She made a horrified little noise and took a few steps away from the bed. "When you're spending nights in the library and he's bribing the other boys to stay out after a night in town, do you have any idea what happens in that bed?"

Sherlock drew back, slightly more disconcerted than he had been about Roger before. "More ideas than I'd care to have, no thanks to you," he said.

Delilah shuddered, but then found it wise to change the topic of conversation. "So I hear Mrs. Thornberry's making chocolate pudding for tonight's dinner," she said, suddenly smiling mischievously. "Seeing as we're the only two in here at the moment, I figure we should stick together. Would you like to join me, Sherlock?"

Sherlock was rather shocked at first by the invitation, but after a few seconds of watching Delilah's face and the joking, devious glint in her sparkling eyes, it didn't sound all that bad. So he stood up and followed her out of the dormitory.

"You know what today is, right?" she asked him as they walked down the hallway together.

"Of course," he answered immediately. "It's the fourteenth of February. The feast day of St. Valentine."

She smiled wryly. "When over the years did it get to be so wretchedly romantic, do you think?" she asked.

Sherlock shook his head. "No idea." He had no idea what made him say what he said next, but once it was out of his mouth, there was no taking it back. "But maybe it's not so bad," he said, "if you find the right person to spend it with."

Delilah, who was a few steps ahead of him, with a definite bounce in her step, turned back to study him strangely for a moment. Then she broke out into a full-faced smile. "No," she said. "I guess not. Sherlock Holmes, you really are a remarkable boy."

"And you, Delilah Parkinson, really are a remarkable girl."

And for the first time since Sherlock arrived at this dreadful school in the fall, he was actually enjoying himself.

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_A/N: Well, there you have it! Very adorable, I know, but it was written after suffering a bad nightmare, so I was in need of some fluff. Hope you enjoyed, and please review! -SWS_


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